Evil Meter Maid Nightmare

I’m still not clear on why I have dreams about zombies.  Possibly because I finished the new season of Walking Dead recently.  And then there's the mefloquine.  The evil meter maid is the main antagonist, although she's absent from most of the dream.  She only appears to remind me that she thinks I'm insane.

My parents and I arrive at a huge commercialized airport and walk into the section with all the shops.  The interior is one vast winding hallway of shops, and I realize my dad has disappeared.  I notice my mom is eating big pink and orange pills that look like what I imagine vitamins from the 80s looked like.  The pills make her high.  I take them away from her and I have to lead her around as I look for my dad.

Suddenly the hall of shops is deserted.  A man charges at me from around the bend of the hall.  He is bald, about middle age, and his skin is dark grey and looks severely frostbitten.  I know somehow that he is a zombie and I have to destroy his brain.

I grab something, maybe a screwdriver, and shove it into his eye as he pounces on me.  There's a crunch and he goes limp.

A meter maid, who witnessed everything, walks up and says, “You can’t murder people here.”

I try to reason with her, telling her that he was a zombie and already dead, that he was attacking me, etc.  She listens patiently but shakes her head in disapproval. She takes me and my mother to a maintenance room and locks us in "for our own good".  She tells me that I am insane and need treatment.  My mom is completely unresponsive at this point and can do little beyond just standing there.

After the meter maid leaves, I search the room and find a flashlight and some other things I think will be useful in what is obviously the prelude to zombie apocalypse.  I tell my mother to stay, somehow exit through what used to be a locked door, and lock her in from the outside.

I sneak out into the big winding hall of shops and it’s still deserted.

I hear distant commotion.  I sneak down the hall toward the noise.

A mammoth automatic door is being forced open by a crowd of frostbitten zombies.  They are almost through.  The sight of me excites them and the door is about to give.  I start running back toward the security room before they can come through.  Halfway to the room, I see my mother standing in the middle of the hall, completely stupefied from the big pills from the 1980s.  There are benches lining the walls of the hall and I cram her under one.  Then I find a wooden window bar nearby.  It's from my Peace Corps house.  It’s my only weapon because I lost the screwdriver from earlier.

I can see their shadows appearing on the far wall as they approach.  The shadows grow smaller and more distinct as they approach.  They're running.  I begin hyperventilating as I wait there with the window bar, which I’m holding over my shoulder like a baseball bat.  But they never appear.  Their shadows just fade or blend with other shadows.

The meter maid comes back and asks me what I’m doing.  I tell her about the apocalypse.  I tell her to seal off the airport.  She tells me again that I’m insane, but I ignore her and she walks off.

My mom is still stuffed under the bench but doesn't seem to mind.  I tell her to stay and be quiet.  Nearby I see a janitor’s mop bucket half full of water.  I take bottles of vegetable oil from a nearby shop and pour them into the bucket, then begin mopping the floor with it so that any incoming zombies slip on it.  It will give me a slight advantage.

Then I have an epiphany: is this a conspiracy?  Are "they" trying to convince me that I’m insane?  Like in that one movie… I forget its name.  Clearly the meter maid is in on it.  Bitch.  She probably gave my mom those pills from the 1980s.  Something suspect is going on, that's for sure.  I don’t even recognize this airport.  Is this being filmed for reality TV?  I begin searching for hidden cameras.

Then an old and important-looking Arab man in a wheelchair emerges from around the bend, surrounded by an entourage of interns.  The interns are clapping.  He explains that this was all a complex practical joke, and that it was recorded.  He’s congratulating me and seems to know me already.  I act as if I know him too, as if I appreciate this elaborate charade, as if I find it as amusing as he does, but he's not fooled.  He's insulted and he and his entourage of interns storm off.

My mom, who was in on it, tells me she’s disappointed in me, considering all he’s done for me in the past.  How could I not remember him?  She’s making the disappointed mom face at me now and I feel like I’ve done something irreparable.  I need to reconcile with that important-looking Arab guy in the wheelchair.

I reconsider and wonder if that is part of the ruse.  Yeah, they’re still trying to make me believe I’m insane.  I really don’t know that important-looking guy in the wheelchair.  Just another part of the ruse, like the zombies.

Then I remember the "zombie" I killed earlier with a screwdriver in the eye.  If this was all a practical joke, that means I brutally murdered one of their actors...  I remind myself that "I thought he was a zombie at the time" in a weak attempt to convince myself of my innocence.  I begin mentally outlining my defense for court.  Good thing they’re filming all this.